Nuggets: Summer Rain

Hump Day NuggetsHump day nuggets are just a few snapshots of our lives from the past week. I like the idea of documenting a few things that aren’t quite big enough to be a blog post on their own. The idea came from one of my favorite blogs to read, Dig This Chick. It’s hard to believe that we are half way through another week already and thinking about the weekend. This year is just flying by so quickly… where is the time going?

:: It has been raining almost non-stop for days on end. We have hardly stepped foot outside, it’s either pouring rain or blistering hot so we’ve been keeping busy with inside activities. The tall grasses that were growing along the side of our pond are nearly submerged now. I’m just glad we don’t have to brave the storms for a morning commute.

Rain

:: I love to be able to whip up a quick meal, especially on these lazy summer days. I’ve been trying to make sure I always have pre-cooked, ready to use ground beef in the freezer. It’s so much easier to cook a large amount all at once and it saves so much time when I go to use it.

Cooked beef

:: I’ve been continuing to eat more raw veggies since learning they are more nutritious that way. It does not take much veggies to make you feel full and stay full which makes them a great snack to munch on. They really reset your taste buds too, making fruit seem like a sweet treat instead of craving cookies or brownies.

Raw vegetables

:: We learned a new card game called golf. It’s kinda addicting, we played it with the family all afternoon on Sunday.

Golf

:: Our family dog is a little weird. I think most people consider their pets as part of the family, but we take that to the extreme. Ginger often performs tricks to get a treat. Ashley sat her at the table while we were playing cards and made her act nicely for a piece of CANDY! Ginger seemed to understand how much of a treat it was because she ate it from Ashley’s hand so gently and politely. This is normal dog behavior, right?

Ginger

:: We went bowling with our Bible study group. We often schedule a fun night after we finish the book or series we’ve been working on. I don’t think we had been bowling since around Christmas time. We should go bowling more often, I was a little out of practice.

Bowling

:: My free cook book came in the mail. I sent in the bar codes off of Namaste products I have purchased and got a cook book of new recipes to make with some of my favorite products. It looks like a lot of them were submitted by other consumers being creative with the products, I can’t wait to try them out.

Namaste cook book

Happy Wednesday!

How to Buy Real Food

I came across this chart on one of the blogs I enjoy reading called Summer Tomato… I thought it was pretty funny!

Real Food Flowchart

Often when I explain to people the foods that I can’t eat their reaction is “Wow, what can you eat?” It’s kinda weird that listing only three things tends to make people think there is nothing left. Although, I really can’t blame them too much since that was my reaction when my allergy doctor first suggested the change in diet. My new thought process is that I eat only food that God made, a.k.a. nothing in a box, jar, or package. What a crazy idea to eat fresh foods that actually grow out of the ground, ready to eat!

Cultures Collide

We have had such a busy and exhausting week. A couple of midnight airport runs will really mess up your body clock. Half of my family (Mom, Andrew, and Andrew’s girlfriend Nicole) just returned home from a mission trip to the Czech Republic. Our church has sent a team for several years to teach English and minister to the Czech people. We were excited to see them, but I think somehow staying up so late to greet everyone made us almost as tired as the ones who did the traveling.

My brother has had quite an adventure over the last month. While teaching English on last year’s Czech team he made good friends with one of his students, Milan. They planned all year to travel together this summer. Andrew went to the Czech Republic a couple of weeks early to stay at Milan’s house and travel around Europe before the rest of the Czech team arrived for the English camp. They got to see and do so many exciting things. After the English camp was over, Milan and his parents came home to stay with Andrew at my parents’ house and travel around the States. The four of them arrived just before midnight on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday (and early into Thursday) we waited to greet the rest of Czech team returning home.

It’s been fun to get to know Milan and his parents a little bit. They are super nice people. They have tried to teach us a couple of Czech words, but our Czech is no where near as good as their English. We even found the perfect opportunity to dig out the globe to find places they had visited and see just how far away from home they are. I think it’s kind of amazing to find similarities with people who live on the other side of the world!

Geography lessonGlobe

Last night we had quite an interesting and diverse group together. It was the first time I had really had the chance to spend time with Nicole’s family. They joined us for the slide show of Milan and Andrew’s travels. Her Puerto Rican family is a lot of fun and a lot different from our family. They enjoyed getting to know our Czech friends as well. I have to concentrate to understand Nicole’s dad with his accent, so I found it most impressive that Milan was able to understand him so easily. Milan and Andrew narrated their travels and Mom and Nicole chimed in for the parts they were there for.

Milan and AndrewSlide show audience

What a fun night! I am so tired after this week, I don’t think we’ll be doing anything tonight. Sounds like a good Netflix night.